The Ties That Bind
by Genesis R
Summary: After the end of Crisis Core, Kunsel and Cissnei were never heard from again. This is their story, of how they survived AVALANCHE and the fall of Shinra. Possible AU in the future. Set at the end of CC.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: Canon says that Zack died in late September, 0007; I'm making the exact date be Sept. 24.

* * *

Night of September 26, 0007

Mako blue eyes narrowed as they stared at the computer screen. Classified information was never wrong. Well, not _never_, but very rarely. There was further documentation to go with the initial report, collected from various sources. They couldn't all be wrong. He didn't need to look at any more to know the heartbreaking truth. His friend was dead. Zack Fair was dead.

Kunsel turned away from the screen, taking off his helmet so he could brush a hand across his face. The second-class SOLDIER stared at his hand for a long moment, not understanding why it was blurry. He hadn't felt emotion this strong, not in a long time. He'd never cried before. But he'd never had anyone this close to him before, either. His friend. Zack, always cheerful, bouncy, always with a smart comment. If Angeal had been the heart of SOLDIER, Zack had been the soul. He could bring life into a room just by walking in. And now he was gone.

Kunsel resisted the urge to break something. This was _not_ happening! It couldn't happen! Not to him, not to Zack! His hand slammed down on the desk next to the keyboard, crumpling the metal. The ever-analytical side of his brain berated him for being so careless, but the emotional part, the part that seldom came to the front, was in control. _Let them see_, he thought. _Let them come. I'll put up a fight, just like Zack did._

He hadn't missed the part of the report where all but three members of an entire squad had been killed by the First. Amid his unshed tears, he had smiled halfheartedly, knowing that Zack's last stand, wherever it had been, would not soon be forgotten by Shinra.

Now, he wanted to track down those three survivors, heroes as they must have been to their comrades, and slaughter them. Had they not known what they were doing? Did they not care? Kunsel felt blindly for his sword, ready to start on a killing rampage instantly, but it wasn't there. He seldom wore it while in the Tower - he felt safe there. Or, he had. But if Shinra would sent troops out against one of their own...

A growl tremored through the silent room and the SOLDIER jumped before he realized it had come from his own throat. He glanced back at the screen, trying not to look at the photograph of Zack with "KIA" flashing over it.

His usually steady hands were shaking as he closed down the files on the computer and methodically erased every evidence of his presence. He wasn't sure exactly what the punishment was for hacking classified computers, but he didn't want to find out. If anyone came for him at this time, he was sure he would explode then and there and start killing.

Four years! How had he gone _four years_ without even thinking to check up on Zack? He could kill himself right now, blazing with anger, cursing himself for being so trusting of Shinra. Since when had he trusted anyone but himself? Had all these years, had his new-found strength, made him become so complaisant?

He could blame no one but himself for his friend's death. Yes, it was Shinra that had actually sent the orders, but he should have intercepted them first, warned Zack, gone to him, taken on the troops himself ... done _something!_ Come to think of it - his rational side was gaining control again - why had Shinra even killed Zack in the first place? SOLDIERs were valuable assets; more than that, they were valuable, period. The SOLDIER program ate up more gil than any other of the Company's endeavors. The mako in them alone...

Kunsel growled again, knowing he didn't have any answers to the multiplying questions. It would be another while before he could get back at these computers, and for once, he told himself, that was all right. He just wished his analytical side would go to sleep for a while and let him grieve.

His keen hearing picked up footsteps approaching from far down the hall outside the office he was currently using - the night patrol was finally coming back around on his lengthy tour.

He punched the computer's power button, remembering only at the last instant not to use all his strength, and tried his best to straighten the crumpled desktop, hoping that no one would recognize the mark as being from a SOLDIER. Shaking his head violently to clear his vision - which kept blurring - he stood up and moved quickly, quietly, to the door, pulling on his helmet as he went. A glance showed him that the guard had gotten distracted by the ajar door several yards down the corridor from the office Kunsel was in, and the SOLDIER took the opportunity to race across the hall and be gone down a side-corridor before the guard even looked up.

He slipped into the elevator and pressed the button for the 2nds' floor, nearly a dozen stories down. As the car began to move gently, he leaned back against the wall and slowly sank to the floor, knees drawn up to his chest and his head bowed. Still, he did not weep; he stared glassy-eyed at the metal grating beneath his boots, seeing instead the ecstatically proud smile on Zack's face when he'd made 2nd. Seeing, instead, every emotion, every expression, that had ever crossed his friend's face. He could hear his laugh, high and throaty, his voice. He could imagine him right there, standing over him, arms crossed, a perplexed expression on his face and a heart ready to do whatever was needed to comfort him.

Kunsel gasped, quickly stifling the noise, and pressed his forehead against his knees. A drop of moisture slid down his face, beaded on his chin, and fell to the floor between his boots. He stared at the small wet puddle without emotion. It totally took him by surprise that, when he raised his hands to his face, they came away wet. Silent tears were pouring down his cheeks.

The elevator doors opened long before he wanted them to. Keeping one hand on the wall for guidance and support, he staggered down the dimly-lit corridor to his quarters. He stopped outside the door, scowling at the light that showed around the frame. His bunkmates must still be up. On impulse, he spun away, retreating back toward the elevator bank faster than he had come.

There was no way he could face anyone else now, not his friends, not anyone. He didn't want sympathy, or pity, or anyone to talk to. He wanted his friend back. Returning to the safety of the car, he hesitated, staring at the glowing button panel. He slowly reached out, his right hand almost feeling for the uppermost number.

He could be alone on the roof. No one would know, or care.

* * *

The smog-filled wind whipped around the building like a living thing, trying to sweep him off, deter him. He wasn't having it.

The roof of the Shinra Tower was rather small, for a building of its size, just a square a dozen yards on a side, with a flimsy railing overlooking Midgar hundreds of feet below. The helipad was on a sort of balcony on the next tier down, where the Tower was wider. Up here, it was like the top of the world - and as desolate.

Kunsel walked to the very edge, leaned over the railing and looked down at the Plate, and beneath that, the slums, the city. It all looked so tiny from up here - yet at the same time, he felt tiny and insignificant; for the people below, life went on without even realizing his existence. His crisis meant nothing to them. They meant nothing to him.

His gaze fell on Sector 6. There the Plate was still under construction, leaving the thriving area underneath open to the sky. He stared there for a long minute, at the ground under Midgar that he so seldom saw, yet had used to be so familiar with. How had he come this far from what he used to be? He never used to care for or about anyone but himself. In the last six years, though, so much had changed that he barely recognized himself any more. He now had the closest thing he had ever had to a family, and friends, and a _best_ friend...who was now dead.

A loud yell echoed off the rooftop, a scream of grief and anger and pain that shrieked to the gray sky above. He screamed again and again, finally finding release from all the emotions that had been building for four years. Just because no one ever saw his pain did not mean that he didn't suffer.

Above him, far above the Tower, it began to rain, bitter tears falling from the ashen sky and burning slightly when they struck skin. Everything in Midgar was poisoned. Kunsel flinched and looked up, letting the burning rain wash over him, wishing that his sorrow would dissolve away. But that could never happen. He would never forget. But he would avenge.

"Good night, Zack."

* * *

It was very early in the morning to be starting on a mission, but Cissnei was anxious for this particular mission to be over with as quickly as possible. She was on the helipad, waiting impatiently for Rude to appear so they could be off. Reno had come up with some last-minute excuse about being unfit for duty that early, so he had been replaced by his usually silent partner. Cissnei was glad of the change. While Reno could easily lighten any atmosphere, it would be irreverent to crack jokes now. Besides, although Cissnei was sure Reno had some emotions in that red head of his, Rude had always seemed a bit more sympathetic, a bit more...perhaps _human_ was the word. To the extent any of them could be human. They were Turks. They killed for a living.

She shook her head, chestnut locks whipping in the wind. She was glad Rude would be with her. That was all. To get her mind off her job, the mission, her part in it, the whole horrid business, she checked her watch, aware that it was the fifth time in the last three minutes. It was with great relief that she heard the door behind her open and Rude's heavy footsteps approached across the concrete.

He stopped in front of her and raised an eyebrow, a clear question.

"I'm ready," she said, although her heart dreaded the task before her. "Let's go."

Rude nodded acknowledgment and strode toward the waiting chopper. Cissnei hesitated a moment, looking up to the sky in a brief prayer to a goddess she didn't believe in. _Please...let us be too late. Far too late._

Then she was hurrying after the other Turk, her legs taking two steps to each of his one. Upon reaching the helicopter, Rude turned and waited for her, offering his hand to help her up. She had to smile at him - it was a gesture no one else, except perhaps Tseng, would have offered; although she had fought hard to win the other Turks' respect as an equal, she appreciated being treated as a woman every once in a while. And today...she'd be willing to take anything to get her mind off the task at hand.

Climbing into the pilot's seat, she waited for Rude to be seated beside her before starting the blades. She let them warm up for a minute, listening as the roar drowned out all thoughts. She let the noise obliterate the memory of a friend, a SOLDIER, a face so cheerful, compassionate, alive. And Hojo wanted them to see if there were any _samples_ left. Her stomach churned. Of all the people who could have been captured, it had had to be _him_. One of the few people she had learned to care about.

There was a slight pressure against her left elbow and she jumped, looking aside to see Rude nudging her. He nodded toward the control stick and she realized that the engine had been warming for plenty long. Her face a stolid mask, she promptly took the controls and lifted the chopper into the early morning sky, still misty from last night's rain.

Rude watched disinterestedly out the window as they rose vertically, clearing the top of the Shinra Tower.

"Stop!" Suddenly he leaned forward, jolting against his seatbelt as Cissnei brought the chopper to an abrupt standstill, hovering in midair. On the roof, huddled in a corner between the railing and the sentry-box that covered the stairwell, sat a figure dressed in the deep purple of SOLDIER Seconds. He was apparently asleep, although he was more or less upright and still wearing his helmet.

Cissnei shook her head. "Nothing important," she muttered. "Probably had a rough night, got kicked out of his bunkroom." What could some soldier possible have to feel bad about? Dumped by his girlfriend, laughed at by his roommates? Something comparatively stupid, no doubt. How _she_ would like to be able to curl up all alone somewhere... Come to think of it, the roof would be a good place for that; it was one of the few places in the entire building where she was fairly sure there were no security measures. But apparently it was already too popular for her needs.

She gunned the chopper upward with a vengeance, pushing the engine toward its limits as they soared northward. Rude didn't say anything, but she could feel his eyes on her as she kept her attention focussed on the instruments in front of her.

"Let's get this over with quickly," she said, feeling she should try to explain her behavior, to herself if not to him.

Rude, however, nodded and replied, "I agree. It's times like this that I regret -"

He stopped and looked aside, expression unreadable behind his dark glasses. Cissnei stared forward out the windshield. _Regret...what? Being a Turk? Going on this mission? Killing for a living?_

_Not being able to have a conscience._

She had been friends with him, that black-haired SOLDIER. She had helped him, given him the keys to escape. Why had he not taken the chance? He could have gone anywhere, gone underground, and never have been heard from again. She would not have liked that, but it would have been far better than the mission she was on now, to look for pieces of him to present to Hojo. What had driven him to come back to the dragon's den, to come to Midgar's very doorstep, with the half-dead infantryman in tow? What suicide mission had he set himself...?

That was part of what killed her about her job. Turks couldn't ask questions; she had learned that very early. Once they started looking at targets as actual people, human beings, the missions became impossible. And when that happened, one couldn't simply resign from being a Turk... If she hadn't known Zack and sympathized with him, made his fight hers, become one of his family even, then this mission would be like any other - a simple recon and retrieval. Now, though, she would be desecrating a hero's grave if she disturbed his rest.

_Please, please let there be no trace. Let the Lifestream have taken everything. Please._

The sun was above the horizon now, glinting across the pale sand of the wastelands and glaring on the windshield. Cissnei was reaching for her sunglasses when Rude pointed with his chin to the barren ground before them.

"There."

The chopper slowly spiraled down, searching the surrounding area from the air, two pairs of eyes looking for bodies, marks of the fight, equipment. There was only one place where the ground was churned up and dark with old blood; they landed near it, on the clifftop, and Cissnei climbed out, Rude behind her.

It was with great relief that they saw that there were few traces left of the battle: even the bodies of the ninety-seven infantry were gone, leaving only shattered helmets and broken swords on the field. They scoured the area for over an hour, but the only item of interest was a scattering of large white feathers around a promontory that looked out over the distant city.

Rude looked at them uncertainly.

"I suppose Hojo -"

"Hojo can go to hell," Cissnei said, cursing herself for speaking so freely but she couldn't keep silent any longer, couldn't keep on as if nothing was wrong. "It's not our place to disturb _his_ rest. I'm not worthy to touch them," she added in a whisper, but Rude heard anyway.

"They look like they could have come from that other target, the one rumored to have been the director of SOLDIER. They're nothing supernatural." Nevertheless, his voice was heavy with uncertainty.

"Except that that target has been deceased for a month or so - more, if you mean the original target, the SOLDIER operative," Cissnei added quietly. "They're angel's feathers. Don't touch them. Hojo...doesn't have to know; he couldn't use them anyway."

Rude nodded finally; part of the Turk job description included knowing what evidence superiors needed to see, and what could be "forgotten" and dismissed. This fell under the category of unimportant to superiors.

"There's nothing here, then," he said, turning away as if he'd never seen the feathers. "I can fly us back."

"Thanks. Just...give me a minute."

Rude didn't question, just walked back toward the chopper, hands tense at his sides. He hadn't known the target. Cissnei had, and it was clearly affecting her judgment, just as it had affected Tseng's when he had ordered them to find the targets, alive, before the army did. Rude didn't care much for whether the targets had lived or died - or at least, so he told himself - but failing a mission, _that_ was unacceptable.

One couldn't work in the Turks for long without developing a coping mechanism; their line of work was hard, taking a toll on both body and spirit. Rude viewed each mission as its own entity. He wasn't completely insensitive to emotion, but he knew well when to keep it hidden. Which was most of the time.

But long ago he'd made a distinction: some people were humans, others were missions. It was recognizing that distinction that kept Rude functioning.

He stopped at the foot of the small cliff on which the chopper was landed, and turned back to glance at Cissnei. She was still standing by the feathers, gazing out toward Midgar. Even at this distance, he could see that her eyes were closed.

_Probably crying_, he thought to himself. Then: _no, she's a Turk. She knew the mission. More likely...reminiscing. _That word sat better with him. For someone whose life depended almost daily on Cissnei and the others, Rude had the utmost confidence in their abilities. He knew how stressful their lives were, and was willing to cut her some slack when she needed it. Just so long as they didn't stay here too long.

He stopped, the trained part of his mind taking control before conscious thought recognized what he was looking at. Footprints, in an unsteady track leading away from the battlefield. Beside them was a slot cut in the ground, the mark of a heavy blade being dragged. He knelt by the side of the tracks, examining them more closely. Someone small - probably shorter, and definitely lighter than Rude himself - had staggered this way a while ago, several days at least, judging from the way dust and sand had already partially filled the prints.

Rising, he absently brushed off his knee and followed the track with his eyes, until he was unintentionally staring at Cissnei's straight back. Whoever had survived had headed off to Midgar.

Feeling eyes on her, the chestnut-haired girl turned, looking straight back at him.

"There are footprints," he said, motioning with his head but not breaking eye contact.

She raised her eyebrows and came over to him, treading softly and watching the ground before her. When she reached his side she stared down at the tracks, her eyes barely moving.

"There was the infantryman with him..." Rude began. Cissnei shook her head, staring at the ground.

"No. He died here as well. Tseng talked to the surviving troops; they killed the SOLDIER and left the other for dead. He was in a coma at the time. If he didn't get killed by stray fire, some wandering creature must have gotten him by now."

"Then who did this?" Rude asked. "A third member?"

"No. One of the army. Either a survivor, staggering away tired, or someone mortally injured. See how they were dragging their sword." She turned away, the conversation over.

But Rude was well aware of the fine line between duty and morals, and this fell right on that slender thread.

"Shuriken." She stopped abruptly, turning and facing him with her head high. When any of the Turks addressed her by her code name instead of her given one, she knew protocol was on the line.

Rude continued, "Are you sure no one survived? This could be a breach of security. If someone with SOLDIER strength gets loose in Midgar... And if we could have stopped it and didn't..."

"No one survived. No one is going to make it to Midgar. No one, Rude." Cissnei spoke with a conviction she rarely expressed, and Rude didn't know what to make of it. There was a distinct possibility someone survived, yet how could she be so sure no one had? She knew as well as he that a lot more than their jobs - and therefore their lives - were at stake. Why was she so willing to take the risk?

"We'll fly back along the trail, just to make sure," he replied, his voice final. He didn't want to antagonize her, but this was his mission too and he was going to do it completely. There was a distinction between respect shown to a fallen friend and blatant omission that could jeopardize everything. Rude did nothing in halves.

"Are you ready to go?"

Cissnei sighed, glancing back once more at the scattering of feathers, now reflecting the sun like they were made of diamond. There was a whispering as of wind and a faint mist clouded the promontory and was gone. So were the feathers.

"Yes," she said. "I'm ready."

She didn't look back once as she climbed into the chopper - Rude did not offer his hand this time - and settled herself in the co-pilot's seat. They flew back in silence, following the faint trail, although out of the corner of his eye, Rude could see that his partner's eyes were not very often on the ground ahead. It didn't make any difference, anyway, as the prints faded away within a few hundred yards. Perhaps a ground team could follow them farther, but Rude didn't see the point. Whoever had made the tracks was long gone, either dead or already in the city. Not a comforting thought, for someone who could walk away unassisted from a confrontation with an army was not someone to disregard lightly. Tseng would receive some word of this, however vague the report may turn out to be.

When they passed over the Tower's roof on the way to the pad, Cissnei glanced down half-heartedly to see if the SOLDIER was still there. Of course he wasn't.

She soon forgot about him over the course of the rest of the day. Too much to do, too many papers to file, reports to write, and the briefing with Tseng. Rude had, thankfully, been brief - _"Nothing living, sir, although we found old tracks leading toward the city. Could be an infantryman."_ - and Cissnei herself had had little to say. The Turk leader had sensed her unhappiness with the mission and had kept her afterward.

_"Cissnei, I need to know you can get past this. What's done is done. This mission is a closed book."_

_"Yes, sir. I know."_

_"You volunteered yourself for this recon."_

_"I know that, too. I didn't like the thought of someone else, someone...uncaring...doing it. It's over now."_

_"Good. I know I can count on you. However, the stress has been getting to us all lately. I advise taking some company leave. It's none of my business, but you need a break."_

_"I can't do that, sir._

_"No?"_

_"I don't want free time right now. Maybe...in a few weeks."_

_"The offer will stand, then."_

Free time! The last thing she wanted right now was quality time alone with her thoughts. She didn't want to be alone. She needed something else to think about. Reno had been quick to suggest that she write up his reports for him for the last four weeks, but she declined and went instead to the Turk Lounge, hoping there would be someone there to talk to. Not to sympathize with - Turks, even in their private time, couldn't let their emotions surface long for fear of it becoming habit. To talk to. To joke with, play cards, drink, anything.

The room was empty. She checked the cabinets, but there was no liquor in evidence, and the coffee maker was cold. Briefly toying with the idea of going out on the town and losing herself for a night, she quickly discarded that idea. Being a Turk placed severe limitations on that sort of thing. There wasn't much they _could_ do, besides reports, meetings, and missions.

She settled for the next-best thing she could think of: she went to her small quarters, turned up the radio, and started a cup of hot chocolate for herself. She even used the chocolate mix she had bought for herself last Christmas, which was reserved for special occasions only, hoping it would drive away some of the cold inside. Sighing, as she waited for the water to boil, she sat down at her little real wood desk and opened the drawer.

Crisp white stationary - the only paper she had without the Shinra name on it - and a pen came out and were laid carefully on top. She stared at them for a while, shifting them slightly, lining the edge of the paper up with the woodgrain, avoiding the task she had set herself.

She stared at the paper, willing words to appear, but nothing came to mind. When the chocolate was ready, she welcomed the brief distraction and actually enjoyed the first several sips, but eventually she could avoid the letter no longer and resignedly picked up her pen.

_Mr. and Mrs. Fair:_

_I have to offer my sincerest condolences..._

* * *

**A/N: **They both - Kunsel especially - came out pretty emotional in here. I'll have them on a more even keel by next chapter.

Let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I guess security cameras haven't been invented yet...

* * *

Night of September 27, 0007

Luck seemed to be with him. Two nights in a row with lazy watchmen. He scoffed silently at them lounging at their posts, one chatting noisily, the other half-asleep, as he slipped through the shadows not ten feet from them. Their lack of attentiveness was abominable. Not that it was an easy task anyway to spot a SOLDIER when he wanted to be stealthy, although right now Kunsel was cursing his glowing eyes. But his gamble held, that they would be distracted enough to not even look around, and he ghosted past them, a part of the night.

He was presently in the main lobby of the Shinra building, an imposing affair with twin curving staircases and a large balcony up above overlooking the ground floor. The guards had been stationed at the main entrance, a ways away from the two staircases, and with their backs turned to the doors on either side of the lobby. Obviously Shinra wasn't too concerned with threats coming up from the labs, as those elevators were never shut down at night, unlike the ones in the main backbone of the Tower. Those were blocked from stopping at any floors other than the lobby and the high-security upper stories.

No one thought an intruder could get into the lobby, not past the dozen _alert_ guards stationed outside, so the sentries inside were lax in their duties. Hence, he barely had to try to slip unnoticed up the curving staircase and to the two elevators there at the top. These were the only ones in the Tower not on nightly lock-down, and so they were the ones Kunsel used on his excursions.

The door slid open with a quiet hiss. One last glance showed that the guards hadn't even moved, much less noticed, so he entered the car and pressed the button for Level 66, the offices of the department heads. He could pay the labs a visit later, if he had to, to find out more. Tonight, he had decided, he would find out everything.

His mind kept running in circles, repeating the same useless questions. Why had Shinra killed a SOLDIER? With Sephiroth declared MIA, Angeal and Genesis dead, and the few others Firsts overloaded with missions, Zack had been the top SOLDIER. A valuable asset for a company bent on world domination. Yet somehow, he had not been worth capturing. Why? What had happened to him?

Kunsel knew his friend had been incommunicado for four years, during which Goddess only knew what had happened to him. Yet even when, hardly more than nine months ago, he had been suddenly able to establish a connection to Zack's PHS, there had been no reply to the several texts he'd sent. Yes, there had been no way for Zack to have known that it was actually Kunsel texting him, and answering could have given away his position, but - they had been friends. What had happened to him?

Besides that, Kunsel wanted to know more about the infantryman who had supposedly escaped with Zack. The SOLDIER had refused at every step to let the man go, even when he was clearly only slowing him down. This man had to be someone important. Kunsel intended to find him, find out if he had even survived this long, and protect him with his life. If Zack's life had been worth it, so too was his own.

It took the elevator several minutes to get up to the sixty-fifth floor, where Kunsel held the 'door closed' button while pressing his ear to the cold metal. He could hear the faint whirring of the ventilation system, the subtle creak and groan of contracting metal as the Tower shifted in the night, but no footsteps. Punching the 'door open' button, he darted out as soon as there was space between the doors for him, and slipped along the dimly-lit corridor like a shadow.

He was going to the top tonight, as he passed by the sub-secretary's office he had been in the night before and headed straight for Heidegger's. Much as he hated the man - hated his new control over the SOLDIER Program - Kunsel had to give him credit for good record-keeping. Heidegger was a control freak, which helped, because he demanded copies of every report from every department under him be submitted to his office or computer, for ease of reference. That was where all the answers would be.

The helmeted SOLDIER passed Heidegger's office and instead entered the third office down. He pushed the desk chair out into the middle of the room, not too far from the desk to make it unbelievable that it had merely rolled away, yet far enough out that it would warrant inspection. Backtracking, he left the door ajar behind him, and proceeded to Heidegger's office. He pushed the door most of the way shut, aware of creaking hinges. He glared across the room at the desk and chair. Curse it, why was Heidegger so confident? Seriously, who but someone with either no fear or a death wish placed themselves in such an indefensible position willingly - with their desk against the far wall and their back to the door. Nothing for it, he thought, knowing his acute hearing would alert him long before anyone came close, as he settled himself in the chair and prepared for a long night.

Where to even begin? He had so many questions, so little time. And for a lot of the questions, he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answers. He wasn't sure he could handle them.

That was why he had brought a portable data drive. Tonight he would simply focus on downloading as many relevant files as he could locate; later, at his leisure, he could try to make sense of it all.

Heidegger had left his computer logged in, never dreaming of intruders, so all Kunsel had to do was turn it on and set to work, hurriedly opening Turk files, army reports, tracking information, and dumping them all onto the drive without a second glance. After he had retrieved the most detailed files he could find, he turned to the more involved task of matching up mission reports with Zack's plotted path on the world map. He wasn't entirely sure what he was hoping for, and it was proving more difficult to find the information than he had expected.

Zack had been hauling around an unconscious, poisoned infantryman ever since he had fled the Mansion, that much was clear. What didn't sit right with Kunsel was the way no mention of the infantryman was included in any subsequent reports. Had he died along the way? Been killed at the same time Zack had been gunned down? Or, as Kunsel was hoping, had Zack at some point realized the danger hunting him and had left the infantryman in a safe place while he continued alone toward Midgar?

The only problem with that were the places Zack was known to have been immediately before heading for the capital. The Mythril Mines facility was a ghost town, inhabited only by brigands and set deep in monster territory. Although the place was full of easily defensible positions, there would be no supplies there and no safe hiding place. Besides, the Turks had already thoroughly scoured the entire area.

Banora was completely out of the question. The place had been bombed; any survivors would be far back in the hills. No safe place there for a comatose man.

Before that, there was Gongaga. Kunsel was a little incredulous of that report - Zack would never have endangered his family by visiting home, not with an army after him. But it seemed that he had gone there, however briefly. It was a Turk report, though, meaning that blacksuits had been in the area. Definitely not a place Zack would drop off a helpless friend.

So, where?

"Looking for Zack?" a voice behind him said, freezing him in place. "I know where a hero's grave is."

* * *

Cissnei couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned, wrapping herself firmly in the sheets, then fighting to get free, only to lie staring at the blank darkness until she just had to move again. The words of the letter to the Fairs kept running through her mind. She had written half a dozen or more drafts, each one more unsatisfactory than the last, until she had finally left off, throwing all the paper into a crumpled wad on the floor. She had sat on her little white desk chair and stared down at the paper, her mind spinning everywhere and nowhere, until she had simply burst into - to her - inexplicable tears. She was a Turk, by Gaia! Since when did she care?

Since every time she had to drive around the city, she was reminded how she'd given him her motor bike. Since every time she showered, she was reminded by the scar on her shoulder how he'd saved her from the Genesis copy. Since every time she tried to think of some happy memory, something to make her smile, he was in it.

_Stop it, just stop it!_ she tried telling herself. _It's over. Just another casualty of war._

_War with what? _her mind asked.

_Wutai. Genesis. Science. I don't know! _ She felt like screaming. Instead, she had dumped the hot chocolate down the drain, shoved the stationery pad back into the desk drawer, and stomped into her bedroom, sitting on the bed and staring at the carpeting until Tower curfew was announced. Habit was hard to break, and with a sigh she took off her jacket, dropping it on the floor by her bed, and turned off the light, lying back on top of the blankets.

She must have fallen asleep briefly, for she woke groggily, tangled in the sheets and with her face damp. She rolled onto her back, the letter she had to write foremost in her mind. That evening, she must have rewritten the opening sentence a dozen times. It had always seemed too flat, too unsympathetic to be a letter to a bereaved family; but every time she started to put in emotion, let true words flow onto the paper, it became very difficult to keep a safe distance between herself and her subject.

Cissnei had never before felt so completely unqualified for a job.

Finally, unable to take it any longer, she swung her legs out of bed, standing up and turning on the light. She strode purposefully back to the desk and sat down, pulling out the paper again and beginning to write furiously. She needed to think straight. This idea had worked well at the orphanage, a miserable place she had tried to block out all memory of.

A diary. She remembered the one she had kept long ago, a small book filled with petty intrigue, grievances never to be forgotten, friends' secrets, dreams. Thoughts. Feelings. Emotions. It took her a while to get the feel of it again, actually being free to spill her soul, but once she started, she found it hard to stop. The feeling was intoxicating; the weight was lifting from her shoulders with every stroke of her pen, urging her to write faster and faster, delving deeper and deeper into territory she thought would never come to light.

It was near midnight when she finally laid her pen down, totally exhausted. Methodically folding the sheaf of paper she had generated, she placed it in the drawer. It would be there for her later if she found she still needed to return to her thoughts, but she fully intended on destroying it when it was no longer necessary. No sense leaving evidence lying around.

Still, now that that burden was gone, another thought was nagging at her. Rude had been brief in his report to Tseng, even more brief than was usual for the laconic Turk. That was because she had been present. But Cissnei knew Rude. He never did anything halfway. Even if his oral report had been lacking, his written one would be complete in every minute detail. She'd read enough of them to know that for a fact.

Tseng would - more than likely - overlook anything he didn't want to see in the report, but superiors would not be so obliging. Especially since that superior was now Heidegger. The man _had_ to have every report funneled through his own personal office. Cissnei knew he didn't read a fraction of everything that crossed his desk, but she didn't want to take the risk that he might pick up the wrong paper for his random leisure reading. A raid was in order.

The prospect of action, even technically illegal action, had her blood pumping. At last there was something else for her to concentrate on.

The elevators tower-wide were on lockdown. Even a Turk keycard couldn't start them, not without alerting someone, so she took the long way: the stairs. She was in no distinct hurry and allowed herself several breathers; despite her stamina, it took her a quarter hour to reach the office floor, and her heartbeat was loud in her ears as she stopped for a minute just inside the stairway door. She waited for footsteps outside, but tonight the guard was taking his time, and she eased the door open. A quick glance showed that the coast was clear with no one in sight and she cat-footed down the hall, light shoes making hardly a sound on the carpeting.

She was almost opposite Heidegger's office when she froze, looking ahead. It was apparent that someone else was up here, as a dim light was shining from under Heidegger's door, and an door several offices down was slightly open. That room, however, was dark, and there was no detectable movement from it. It was also first on the watchman's beat, before Heidegger's. Clearly, whoever was up here was good at their craft; they just had failed to consider someone coming from the direction of the stairs - and elevator.

Staring at the light under the door, she considered her options. Retreat - the thought was discarded immediately. She didn't know the exact scope of what was at stake here, but she had already decided it was worth it. She could wait until the person had left, assuming that they were going to at some point, or she could confront them. After all, it wasn't unusual for Turks to have secret assignments, and they were the one group who could wander at will just about anywhere, with passable impunity.

It certainly wasn't Heidegger in there; the overweight man never came into work more often than he absolutely had to, and he would have had no reason to set up the distraction for the watchman. Another Turk? Also out of the question. Although she couldn't think of a reason for one of her colleagues to be up in the head of Public Relations office, she also couldn't think of a reason why they _couldn't_ be up here; she just felt it would be too much of a coincidence. Who did that leave? Another employee? SOLDIER? Scientist? Aside from the incredibly remote possibility of an intruder, that list covered basically everyone in the Tower. None of the choices seemed very likely.

She pushed the door open silently, one hand on her knife just in case.

A purple-clad man, helmeted, was sitting with his back to the door, staring intently at the computer screen. He clearly hadn't yet detected her presence, despite the enhancements that came with the SOLDIER uniform. Cissnei stood there very quietly, watching over his shoulder as he accessed several reports; he seemed to be tracking Zack's flight from the Shinra Mansion, all the way up until the trail ended outside Midgar.

"Looking for Zack?" she asked quietly. His body went completely rigid. "I know where a hero's grave is."


	3. Chapter 3

Night of September 27, and Morning of September 28

Kunsel sat there for several heartbeats, eyes unseeing on the screen, every muscle tense, waiting for the attack that never came. Waiting, in fact, for any further move from the doorway, but whoever was there seemed content to let him make the next move.

"You know Zack?" he asked, keeping his tone neutral. He didn't turn around.

"I knew him."

Past tense. So the speaker knew of his death. Question was, how much else did they know?

"So it's true." Complete ignorance was closed to him, but playing dumb couldn't hurt. After all, he was just up here to find out when his best friend would be coming back, right?

"He's dead, if that's what you mean." Still no inflection in the voice.

Kunsel dared to move enough to close the open files, logging out of the computer quickly and, he hoped, discreetly. His hand rested over the data drive - he thanked the Goddess that he'd had it there the whole time - and as he slowly stood and turned, he palmed the device and slid it into his pocket.

A short woman stood in the doorway, wavy chestnut hair slightly mussed, but with a battle-ready stance. She was wearing the black uniform of the Turks.

"Ah. Hello -" He searched for her name. He was sure Zack had mentioned someone of her description, a long time ago...after returning from Costa del Sol. "Cissnei."

Her eyes were hard, blank behind long lashes. "And you, SOLDIER?"

For a split second, he considered lying, but decided against it. She was a Turk. She probably had known who he was before she'd even come up here.

"Kunsel, Second Class." He'd never before been as grateful for his helmet as he was now. Then, deciding it was time for a strategic retreat, he added, "Thanks for...letting me know. 'Night." He stepped forward, shoulders relaxed and demeanor unthreatening, but she tensed and stood straighter. He stopped, there being no way around her unless she moved.

She stared at him with guarded brown eyes, measuring every inch of him. For once, Kunsel, who prided himself on being able to know almost instinctively a person's character, drew a complete blank, while this woman seemed to read him as easily as a book. It made him more than a little uncomfortable. He took the opportunity to look her over in turn, knowing that his eyes were hidden behind the helmet. If she felt his stare, she gave no indication of it.

At last she stirred, relaxing her body and letting her hand fall from the back of her belt. "Such loyalty to a comrade is admirable."

Kunsel shrugged, hoping she would just let him go now. She did step aside and he slipped past, containing his nerves and keeping his pace nonchalant. He was halfway back to the elevators - she hadn't moved from the doorway - when she said quietly, "It's your methods that are questionable."

He turned around. If she knew anything about SOLDIERs, she knew that he would have heard her when she spoke. However, she was paying him no attention, instead looking at the office floor, her hands at her sides. He waited there a moment, but when it was clear she had no more to say, he walked on, entering the elevator and pushing the button for a random floor. No sense giving away his _exact_ location.

Cissnei's presence had almost shaken him more than the information he had gathered tonight. What had happened to enhanced hearing giving advance warning? He scoffed at the idea that even Turks could sneak up on a SOLDIER, but he could think of no better explanation, except that he had let his guard slip.

The car bumped to a stop. He waited a moment, then punched the button for his own floor. He'd go over the data in the morning; right now he needed sleep, enhancements notwithstanding. Two all-nighters and the emotional trauma took their toll and he crashed on his bunk, hardly bothering to take off his boots and helmet. For once, his roommates' snoring didn't disturb him as he slipped swiftly into a deep sleep, the data drive clutched in his hand.

* * *

Cissnei stood in Heidegger's doorway for an unnecessarily long time, waiting until the grind of cables from the elevator had ceased. Only then did she remember the watchman, long overdue on his rounds. In a flash, she was in the office, whipping through the stack of reports on the desk. There was her own, short and uninformative; below it was Rude's. Without giving it a second glance, she rolled it up and stuffed it into her pocket just in time to hear the guard's footsteps outside.

The computer was already off, and the only lights on were the auxiliary lights anyway, so the room was fairly dark...but not dark enough to hide a person, even a black-clad Turk. Then she thought of - what was his name? - Kunsel's diversion, and couldn't suppress a slight smile as the footsteps hurried into the other office.

She raced down the hall to the stairwell door, knowing her steps would be light enough to go unheard. She didn't make a sound until the door behind her closed with a click, but she didn't wait for the guard to come investigate. She practically leapt down the stairs, tired as she was, and was back on the Turk floor in five minutes, and in her own quarters in another minute.

Only then did she take out the report and head straight for the kitchenette. She was almost there when she looked down at the paper in her hand. It was none of her business, she knew, and she disliked spying on her co-workers, but she did want to know what Rude had written about the mission. Despite the hour, she sat down at her desk, ignoring the crumpled letters on the floor from earlier, and unrolled the report.

As she read the several pages of detailed description, trust in her comrade grew in proportion to her feelings of guilt. Rude had been thorough to a fault, but some details seemed to have slipped through the cracks. Including the feathers and Cissnei's reluctance to follow the trail toward the city. Gaia, how could she not have trusted him, when with every mission she entrusted her life to his hands? She sincerely hoped that he wouldn't get in trouble for not submitting a report, because now she felt a renewed sense of companionship with the man. Even if she would never be able to express it.

The report still needed to be burned - she couldn't very well return it, and if such incriminating evidence was found in her possession... She proceeded on to the oven, pulled out a baking sheet, and dropped the paper on it. A match made quick work of it, and she stood watching until the last curled ashes disintegrated. She considered waiting to clean it up in the morning, but habits were hard to break and she dumped everything into the sink, giving it a cursory rinse.

Dead tired, she stumbled to her bedroom and collapsed on her back on the bed, but sleep refused to come. There had been a SOLDIER on the upper floor - how had that happened? She refused to believe that he'd been simply wanting to know what had happened to Zack. She didn't know that he was who he claimed to be. It was Heidegger's office: all Turk, SOLDIER, and police reports went through there. He could have been looking at goddess-knew-what. She didn't really care. As long as he didn't turn her in, she would forget she'd ever seen him...which would actually be fairly easy to do, considering the chaotic hell of the rest of the world.

Something big was building. Tseng had wanted to tell her, but for some reason hadn't. He had instead delivered a warning. She would have been blind not to recognize that Tseng wasn't really concerned about her emotional well-being when he'd suggested company leave. He'd wanted her to get away, far away, and soon. Anger welled up toward him. What was there that he felt she wasn't equipped to handle? No one else she knew had been offered leave... But then, when was the last time she'd heard from the others?

Last month? No, that had only been herself, Reno, Rude, and the rookie, Elena. And she'd never met, only heard of, the nine new recruits brought in - how many months ago? And where were those people now? She wasn't sure of anything anymore, except one fact: she was being intentionally left out of the loop. She briefly thought of going to Tseng and flat-out asking him, but if he'd been inclined to tell her anything, he already would have done so. Maybe this was a test of her ingenuity. Very well.

If a SOLDIER could sneak into a high-security office and steal data, so could she. Only she wouldn't get caught.

Tomorrow.

She was asleep in minutes.

* * *

President Shinra could think of numerous better ways to be spending his morning than sitting in a 31st-floor meeting room waiting on subordinates. The first four Turk-SOLDIER pairs had been punctual to their individual briefings, had received their assignments, and had left civilly, but this last Turk seemed not willing to appear until doomsday. Shinra drummed his pudgy fingers on the tabletop.

Heidegger glanced up from where he wasn't really looking at the papers scattered in front of him, then tucked his head back down like a turtle. Tseng, Rude, and Elena had been too polite to mention it, and Reno had been distracted, but it was likely only a matter of time before someone mentioned the late memo regarding this meeting. Yes, he'd been asked several days ago to send it out, but he'd kept forgetting and more important matters had gotten in the way, putting off sending out the message until that very morning.

At least everyone had managed to show up - until now.

"Get me some more coffee, dear," Shinra said, turning to Scarlet.

The blonde executive looked up from her paperwork and sighed, scowling as she got up and headed for the door.

Heidegger looked up from where he'd been giving a passable impression of being asleep. "Me, too."

Aware of the president's eyes on her, Scarlet smiled poisonously at the overweight incompetent, and left, murder written on her eyebrows. It was Kunsel's bad luck that she met him in the corridor outside.

"About time you showed up," she snapped, not really caring who was behind the blank helmet. "Keeping the president waiting like this ought to get you demoted!"

Kunsel backed a pace, not because he was in the least bit intimidated by her or her threat, but because submissive behavior usually pacified higher-ups. Scarlet seemed to be in a particularly bad mood, though. As she passed, she grabbed his shoulder - she was tall, almost as tall as the SOLDIER - and spun him to face her. Kunsel bristled but tried not to show it as she leaned in closer and hissed, "You're walking a thin line, SOLDIER."

He froze, every muscle tensing. Had that girl turned him in last night?

Scarlet felt him go stiff, and immediately backed off, intimidated. Even she wasn't foolish enough to push a SOLDIER. Glaring daggers at him, she continued in a snarl, "You think you're above everyone else - but let me tell you, you're expendable, too. Disrespect your superiors again like this, and I'll see that you become target practice for the army!" She whirled away and stormed off down the hall, high-heels hammering the floor.

Kunsel sighed in relief. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just executives with chips on their shoulders. He was currently more concerned with the subject of the memo he'd gotten at an unholy hour that morning. SOLDIER was wanted to spy on the Turks? At least, that was the impression he'd gotten from the hastily-typed - and thus error-filled - notice. Any further impressions had been obliterated by the realization that he'd overslept yet again and would be very late to the meeting.

He had thrown on his boots and helmet, trying to straighten out the wrinkles in his uniform from having slept in it, and had hurried to the elevator. It probably hadn't been such a good idea to skip breakfast, as his stomach started complaining on the way down to the conference room, but he'd been through worse. It just didn't do anything for his mood.

Heidegger looked up at him and almost visibly withered as Kunsel entered the room and came to a stop at the far end of the long conference table.

"Mr. President, sir," he said, nodding, pulling out a chair and sitting without being told he could. He was feeling rebellious today, and scowled at Heidegger. Unfortunately, his chin revealed little and so the weight of the expression was lost on the executive, who looked away and cleared his throat.

"Well, well, so you got here first, before the Turk," the president began, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands over his ample belly. "Let's get down to business."

_Yes, let's_, Kunsel thought, hoping his grumbling stomach couldn't be heard at the other end of the table.

"The Turks' old leader, before Heidegger was promoted to the office, was Veld. This man is now a criminal, a wanted traitor with a price on his head. Although we're fairly close to capturing him, he is still at large, and there is a chance he could come back here to rally his Turks to his side. That would be, to say the least, a major breach in both our security and defenses."

Kunsel nodded agreement, not liking where this was heading. Obviously Shinra assumed he was as uninformed as all the SOLDIERs were, at least officially, but he'd done enough digging on his own to be aware of the situation. There was no danger Veld would come back, especially not since the report that he was last seen on the Western Continent searching for materia. It would seem that Shinra, both president and company, had lost faith in the Turks.

Shinra continued, "Circumstances being as they are, I have deemed it best - for the Turks' sake, of course - to assign each an individual guard. Just to keep them straight, so to speak."

Scarlet came back at that moment, bearing two cups of coffee - one distracted the president, while the other she set down on the table by her seat. Heidegger reached for it, but without paying him any attention, she scooped it up and took a sip. The head of General Affairs frowned and went back to sleeping; Scarlet set down her cup and glared daggers at Kunsel.

"You're to follow the target everywhere, to ensure that...Veld doesn't attempt to contact your target," Shinra said, putting down his coffee. "This mission will stand until further notice. Failure will result in termination."

_That_ threat got Kunsel's full attention. Never before had anyone even considered death as a punishment. SOLDIERs were above that. But, then again, there was Zack... Kunsel nodded gravely, making an effort to appear attentive. The other half just wanted this to be over with so he could go over the information he'd collected.

But Scarlet wasn't done; apparently her temper from earlier was still alive and she commented with a sneer, "If you'd come earlier, you could have had your pick. Now, you get the last Turk -"

"Who is still yet to show up," Shinra muttered, his restlessness increasing proportionally to the amount of coffee he'd drunk. "Heidegger, you did send out the notice?" _Oh, yes, he'd sent out the memo - days late!_

"Yes, sir. The Turks seem to have gotten lax lately. It really is despicable."

"Especially since you're now in charge of them," Scarlet hissed, but only Kunsel heard her.

There was a tap on the open door, and Cissnei stood there, much to Kunsel's surprise, looking like she'd had a rough night. After the president acknowledged her, she came and sat in the only seat next to Kunsel.

He glanced over at her and was about to make a comment about her not being much of a morning person, but she squashed him with a look and turned her attention on Shinra. He launched once again into his speech of semi-explanation. When he reached the part where Veld was feared to come back, Cissnei tilted her head a degree, eyes narrowed in disbelief. No one, except Kunsel and maybe Scarlet, saw the gesture; it made the SOLDIER's estimate of her go up a bit, as she'd already been aware of classified information.

The briefing was, well, brief. Cissnei didn't blink when she was told that a SOLDIER would be following her around everywhere indefinitely. Kunsel had to hand it to her - she had more stoicism than he could be certain he would have in such a situation.

"Kunsel, Shuriken. Shuriken, Kunsel," Heidegger said, rousing himself enough to stand up for the introductions. Cissnei bit her lip, inwardly cursing whatever deity ruled the world.

The SOLDIER was standing, holding out his hand toward her. Not missing a beat, she perfunctorily shook hands.

"Cissnei," she said, letting her hand drop.

"Nice meeting you," Kunsel said, likewise returning to his seat. If she wanted to feign ignorance, that was fine by him. "Anything else, sir?" he asked, looking at the president.

"No," Shinra said, standing up. "Good day."

After he left, the room settled into a venomous silence, Scarlet glaring at all around her, Heidegger shuffling papers into a messy pile, and Cissnei gazing around with a grim expression. Even she avoided Scarlet's eyes, Kunsel was amused to see, although that was probably only to avoid a confrontation.

"Well?" the blonde woman finally snapped, pinning them both with her stare. Kunsel looked bored.

Cissnei rose to leave and he did likewise, slightly unsure as to his new position. Following a Turk around, and this particular Turk, at that? Things were sure to get awkward. And they did - just a little sooner than he had expected.

They were in the corridor outside, having left without much more than a barely civil "good day" to the two department heads, when Cissnei made an abrupt left turn, leaving Kunsel hurrying to keep up.

"Please excuse me; I'll just be a minute," she said, and closed a door in his face. He was about to push it open and follow her - he certainly wasn't going to fail the assignment, not within the first five minutes - when he noticed the sign beside the door and backed away.

"Oh."

* * *

Things had happened way too fast for Cissnei. She needed time to think...in private. With the SOLDIER tailing her, there was only way she could think of at the moment to be alone for a while. So she'd ducked into the restroom, sure - well, _fairly_ sure - that he wouldn't dare follow her in.

She slipped into a stall and shut the door, leaning her head against it and closing her eyes. She'd wanted answers today; instead she got a guard-hound. And _him_, of all people. She had a feeling it would be difficult to evade him. But then, he had something to hide, so maybe they could turn their backs on each other... She doubted that. Kunsel didn't seem the kind to take his job anything but seriously, regardless of what he did on off-hours.

And what was this deal with Veld? She hadn't seen or heard anything of him since they'd met in the Nibelheim Mansion last December, now almost ten months ago. He'd mentioned he was looking for materia to save his daughter's life, and then had knocked her out and vanished. He was back now, and looking for support? _That_ she highly doubted. Shinra had been desperately casting about for a reason to keep her under surveillance, and for some reason had hit upon that as an excuse. For that matter - why not put her under house arrest, if it was something important? She knew the Turks had leverage, but certainly nothing to hold over Shinra...right?

Her head was spinning now worse than it had been when she'd come in here. Four hours of sleep did nothing to help, nor did the knowledge that Kunsel was right outside the door. Sighing heavily, she figured she might as well freshen up since she was here.

* * *

In the corridor, Kunsel leaned against the wall opposite the door and hoped that no one else would come through and see him loitering there. What was he supposed to do in this sort of circumstance? How closely was he expected to follow her? Surely there would be limits...

Or not.

"Already lost her, have you?" a voice barked, and he didn't need to look up to know Scarlet was approaching from the meeting room. "Answer me, SOLDIER! Where is your target?"

Kunsel nodded his head in the direction of the restroom; Scarlet got the hint, and sniffed with foiled malice.

"You're only a footstep away from army target-practice; mess this one up, and I'll see you don't live to regret your failure." Scarlet huffed past him, ill will emanating from her in an aura as she continued on down the corridor and was soon out of sight.

Cissnei came out a few minutes later, looking refreshed and more awake than he did. Kunsel fell in step beside her, taking short strides to match hers. He wasn't particularly tall, but there was a good eight inches difference between them. Cissnei noticed his mincing steps and picked up the pace, swinging her legs so her stride almost matched his. He sped up accordingly. Should he ask where they were headed? His stomach seemed to think so, as it grumbled aloud and Cissnei glanced aside at him, one eyebrow raised in an expression that could be sympathy.

"Mess hall?" she asked laconically.

He nodded, but she wasn't looking at him. "Sure."

Without another word exchanged, they made it to the commissary and took their trays - it was just as well they were forced together, as there was only a single table open. More unfortunate was the fact there was only one chair. Kunsel looked around for another, but this was the last call for breakfast, and the mess hall was packed. He looked back to Cissnei to find her still standing, frowning at him.

"Well?" she asked, clearly impatient. Her tray was balanced neatly on one hand and her other fist was resting on her hip. Kunsel just stared at her through his helmet, then looked at the single chair.

He raised one eyebrow, although she couldn't see it. "Well?" he repeated.

She hooked one ankle around the chair leg and pulled it out from the table. He looked at it in vague puzzlement.

"Um, it's a chair," Kunsel said. Was this girl out to make a fool of him? _Well, she is a Turk..._

Cissnei frowned further and remained standing. He glanced up and saw that she was eating one-handed, still holding the tray. "I don't need special treatment." He resisted the urge to say, _then why the bodyguard?_ and instead balanced his own tray on one hand.

"I don't mind, but if you really want to make this more awkward, then by all means, remain standing," he said, shifting his weight to one leg and reaching for his cup. He didn't want to nettle her - if he was going to have to be at her side for Goddess-knew-how-long, he really didn't want her resenting him - but she was being a bit ridiculous.

"Same here," Cissnei said sharply, although his comment hadn't been unfriendly.

But she was feeling put-out at the moment and was not in the mood for nonsense. If the SOLDIER wanted to stand, fine by her! Once she'd made up her mind, she never changed; the sky would fall before her resolve broke. So, without another look at Kunsel, she ate her breakfast in silence, both of them standing by the only empty chair. It wasn't wise to alienate him, her mind kept telling her, but it felt oh-so-good to actually be in _control_ of something, even something stupid.

She only wished the rest of her life was as simple as this.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **I know, this is the fourth chapter, and there's yet to be any major action or much sign of a plot. I promise that's going to change soon, as I've been trying to work on character development to the exclusion of all else, but I think I have their relationship where I need it for things to start happening - and things really do start happening beginning in this chapter. Thanks for being so patient as to read up to this point! Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

September 28

"You know, maybe you should consider taking that helmet off sometimes."

Kunsel glanced up from where he was meticulously cleaning and oiling his sword, and peered at the Turk through the slats in his helmet. She was sitting across from him at her office desk, frowning at the computer screen and not looking at him. The SOLDIER shrugged, leaning his blade against his chair, and sat back.

"It gives me a sense of security." Not that he hadn't thought plenty of times of taking it off, but safety and common sense had always won out. As did habit.

"You're in no danger here," Cissnei commented, eyes flicking between her keyboard and her screen.

"You know as well as I do that that's not true."

That got her attention away from whatever she was researching, and she leveled a flat stare at him. Three heartbeats passed as she sorted out her thoughts, then she answered carefully, "You know a lot for a warrior."

"Are brains and brawn mutually exclusive?"

"You get around a lot."

He tensed, expecting a comment on his late-night activities, but she glanced back at the computer for a second. Knowing it was probably the wrong thing to say, he replied, "Obviously, so do you; otherwise, why would they guard you this closely?"

She smiled, an expression that didn't reach her eyes. Time to deflect attention. "Back to my original inquiry: why not take off that ridiculous headpiece? You weren't assigned a combat mission. Unless you just like rubbing it in that you're on active duty and I'm not..." She really hadn't meant to say that last bit, but she supposed it couldn't do any real harm.

To her surprise, Kunsel reached up and swept the helmet off, dropping it on the floor next to his sword with a dull thud. She stared at his face, her eyebrows raised in surprise, although the rest of her expression was guarded.

He ran a hand through his sandy-orange hair, giving it some life from where it had been matted flat, and shrugged at her, smiling dryly. She was a Turk. And now she'd seen his face. She also knew his name, and where he lived and worked. There went security.

Kunsel met her stare, aqua-streaked brown eyes meeting hazel-brown, but she didn't seem fazed and instead continued her examination - as if she was memorizing his face. Now _that_ was uncomfortable. He wondered if it would appear too suspicious if he slammed his helmet back on. But after a moment, she glanced away, her mouth twitching into a faint smile.

"What?"

"At least now I'll know it's you in there. Otherwise it could be any guy in a helmet following me around."

Kunsel grinned back. Cissnei could actually be pretty personable, once she opened up.

"You still don't know I'm actually the guy who was assigned to you."

"The fact that you know that someone was assigned to me proves that you were at the meeting, thus you must be Kunsel," she said, turning back to the screen.

Kunsel chuckled and resumed cleaning his sword for lack of anything more interesting or productive to do. Cissnei went back to glaring at her computer, punching buttons and obviously not being satisfied with the results. The SOLDIER glanced at his watch and noted that it had been three hours since they'd finished their awkward breakfast, three hours that he'd been sitting here, immobile, and bored out of his mind. He was so impatient to get a look at that data drive, but now that seemed like it would have to be postponed indefinitely.

"Scrub that thing any more, and there won't be much of it left."

He looked up to find the Turk watching him again. "You have any ideas of something more useful?"

She grimaced. "As a matter of fact...I might."

"What's the problem?"

Cissnei hesitated, frowning, then pushed back her chair and stared at him. He got that uncomfortable feeling again, like an insect under a microscope, so he grinned and casually leaned farther back in his chair. Cissnei couldn't help but smile back at him, although her next question was serious.

"Are you trustworthy?"

"Would you take my word for it?" he answered, surprised at this new turn.

For a moment, she paused still, then said, "Yes." She looked at him again, but it wasn't quite so analytical this time. "We both know enough to convict each other several times over. We might as well trust each other."

Kunsel nodded. "But usually trust comes after friendship, not before."

There was another moment of silence.

"Want to be friends, then?" Cissnei asked.

The orange-haired SOLDIER smiled again, this time with genuine humor. "With my personality, I figured that would probably be inevitable. In time, anyway."

He nearly got another stare for that, but Cissnei instead opted to turn the screen to face him, in place of an answer. He stood up and came over to her desk, and for a moment he stared blankly at the computer, not really wanting to read the fine text that covered the screen. Obviously Cissnei had been waiting for a more dramatic response, as she turned to look at him, then glanced back at the screen. "Don't you find this the least bit disturbing?"

"A little. Can you give me the lowdown so I know what I'm looking at here? I'm rather a slow reader..."

She motioned at the screen. "Have you ever heard of a creature called Zirconiade?"

"Nope. But if it's a summon, that's no surprise. I haven't been studying like I ought to've."

"It is a summon - the Ultimate Summon, in fact. It's never been seen before; supposedly it's the equivalent of one of the Planet's own WEAPONs. There's a huge materia to call it out, but it's been broken into five pieces. Four were thought lost, but one was the piece grafted into Elfé, Veld's daughter. Veld's been collecting the four support materia, because once together they'll fuse and stop draining her life. But -"

"But fusing materia means that the summon will be complete. Right?"

"And Zirconiade will be controlled by whoever gets to summon it, which at the moment will be that lunatic scientist Fuhito - who's going to use it to destroy all life on Gaia!"

"What? Why?"

"I don't know. I only know what little Veld told me nine months ago when we met in the Mansion. But that's not the point. We need to stop AVALANCHE before they collect all four materia, and right now there's only one still missing."

"Could you Turks find the last one and hide it? Doesn't sound too hard."

"Actually, we were the reason the three have been found. We were helping Veld - off-record, of course - and he ended up getting them stolen by AVALANCHE. Now, though, even we don't know where the last one is, although the rest of us Turks, Veld, and all of AVALANCHE are scouring the continents. And meanwhile, Elfé is dying."

"Hm." He thought for a moment, leaning heavily against her desk. "And what exactly is AVALANCHE?"

"It's a very long story. Perhaps one better suited for off-duty; I'm not entirely certain that these offices aren't all bugged to some extent," she said. "But in short, I have reason to believe Tseng, our current leader under Heidegger, is hiding something from me. Something big. All the other Turks are on active duty, and have been for some time. Meanwhile I've been kept here, doing paperwork and not going more than five miles from Midgar, for the last six months. If that's not a sure sign of things to come..."

"And what exactly do you want me to do? Even if I _could_ help, do you know that I _would_?"

Cissnei shrugged one shoulder, smiling blandly at the screen. "No, but I figured you are probably just as bored as I am and would do anything for some excitement."

"Am I really that predictable already?"

She laughed, the first time he'd heard her do so. "Just a lucky guess."

"Oh, well, in that case...sure."

She whipped around to face him, her eyes wide in surprise. "Seriously? But if you get caught -"

"I don't _get_ caught. What exactly do you need me to do?"

"For now, just keep your eyes open, see if any of your...sources know anything of what's going on in the world outside Midgar. I'll keep my eye on Tseng, and - if you know anyone who knows about Zirconiade, that would be a plus. I might buy you dinner."

"And then force me to stand during it?"

"Yeah, okay, sorry about that earlier. You just caught me at a really bad time. The day before I'd been out to the Wastes and seen the place where," she swallowed harshly, "where Zack died."

Kunsel looked at her with new sympathy. "You were more than passing acquaintances."

The Turk didn't answer but nodded sadly, looking aside and blinking repeatedly.

"I know how you feel," he began, but the memory was too close for him, and he quickly changed the subject. "So - about AVALANCHE. Wanna go somewhere after work to talk?"

"Sure," she said, her voice more subdued than he'd yet heard it.

Kunsel was about to say more, try to find something to change her mood, but just then the office door opened. Tseng came in, carrying an armload of papers, and set them down on Cissnei's desk. He barely spared the breath to bid them both a perfunctory good day, and even his explanation was brusque.

"A lot of these are reports that need to be filed. Simply organize them by operative and date; that's all. These others" - he indicated a much smaller stack clipped together inside a binder - "I want you to correlate the data, the times and locations, and try to find a pattern to them. If there isn't one, that's...expected, but I believe there'll be something."

He turned and left the room, walking past as if the SOLDIER didn't exist, although Kunsel noticed Tseng's own SOLDIER shadow in the corridor outside. The door shut, and Cissnei grimaced at the amount of paper now on her desk.

"And I thought I'd go home soon," she muttered, pulling the larger stack toward her.

"This may not be too bad," Kunsel answered, running a hand through his hair as he leaned over her desk. "Two of us working means it'll be twice as fast."

Cissnei paused from shuffling through the reports. The SOLDIER reached for the sheaf of data, but her hand moved faster than his and rested firmly on top of the binder. He glanced at her in surprise.

"I don't think I should let you read that - even if you probably already know what's in it."

"Just tryin' to help."

"If you want to organize reports, though, go for it." She nudged the pile in his direction, then pulled the binder into her lap.

Kunsel shrugged, hefting the papers, and dragged the chair over to her desk. This was certainly some work for a SOLDIER to be doing!

After skim-reading the first several and realizing that the Turks submitted reports mostly in code, he decided it was a waste of time to try to garner anything useful, and concentrated on sorting. The task took longer than he'd thought it would, but even when he was done, Cissnei was still staring at the screen where she'd entered the data Tseng had requested.

"What now?" Kunsel asked, setting his papers onto the desk.

"I recognize this. I don't think I'm supposed to, but - these are Veld's last known locations, all over the world."

The SOLDIER frowned, dredging up from his encyclopedic memory the relevant information. Veld: leader of the Turks practically since their inception, a man with an exemplary record who had given his all for Shinra and the Turks. Then, four years ago, he had abruptly disappeared while on a mission to save the new Corel reactor from some dissidents, and hadn't been heard from since. At least as far as Kunsel knew. Cissnei obviously knew otherwise, if she was able to recognize some of the places Veld had been.

"So the Turks are tracking Veld. Isn't that what Turks do?" Kunsel asked. "Makes sense, as he's listed as a traitor." He'd learned long ago that Turk business was generally better left alone, and for once he showed little interest in new information.

Cissnei, however, was more animated - and angry - than he'd yet seen her. "If they've been tracing him, they haven't told me. And Turks are a team; we're all supposed to know everything! How could Tseng hide this..."

"Maybe he was trying to protect you."

The acid stare Cissnei narrowed at him made him immediately shut his mouth. She continued, "Why so many secrets? Why's everyone being so cryptic? This is my job, by Gaia, but everyone's hiding things from me and trying to stall me. I want to know what's so darn secret that Tseng isn't telling me! I need to know what's going on." She sighed, dropping her head into her hands. When she spoke again, her tone was much calmer although still taut. "Let's...go. To my apartment, maybe. Somewhere we can talk."

"Fine by me. However, is there really that much to talk about? I don't know if I can completely, well, _trust_ you yet, and it's not like we really have common ground anyway."

Cissnei made an impatient gesture, slamming the binder down onto the desk. "I'll be off duty! Can't we just talk?" She glared at him, but her jaw was clenched to keep from trembling. She was tough as nails on the outside, Kunsel realized, but she was cracking. He wondered whether he was much better.

"Yeah." He nodded abruptly. "Sure."

She was out of her desk like a whirlwind, slinging her jacket around her shoulders and locking the binder in her desk drawer, then she whisked out of the room, leaving Kunsel to collect his gear and follow in his own time. He just prayed Scarlet wasn't wandering the halls right now.

He hurried out into the hallway, afraid he'd already lost her, but Cissnei had stopped right outside her office and was waiting for him. Without a word, she took off once again, toward the elevators.

Only when they were both in her quarters with the door shut did she slow down, remembering courtesy. She ushered him into the small living room, telling him to make himself comfortable, as she paused in the doorway to the kitchenette. "Want some coffee?"

He glanced up at her sharply then half-laughed. "No. No thanks." Cissnei had her eyebrows up again, and he realized further explanation might be helpful. "Mako's already a stimulant - you _really_ don't want to see a SOLDIER on caffeine. However, if you have any milk, I'll take that."

She slipped into the kitchen, leaving him to look around her quarters. He didn't want to pry, but a lot of information could be gained from observing someone's house. A single shelf of books rigidly alphabetized above her desk. Her furniture, neat and clean to the point of obsession, with the pencil-straight folds in the blankets and draperies. Not a thing was out of place, except for...he leaned down. On the floor was a small scattered pile of wadded papers with writing on them.

Kunsel stared at them in puzzlement for a moment, unable to reconcile them with the rest of the room's meticulous neatness. He glanced up quickly. Cissnei was certainly taking her time getting the drinks... He leaned over for a closer look, and caught Zack's name amid the writing. Without hesitation, he snatched up the sheet, swiftly flattening it out, all the while keeping one eye on the doorway to the kitchenette. Reading hurriedly, his eyes widened at what was written. _"I can hardly find the words to tell you this, but your son Zack was killed in action three days ago. I can't say that his death was painless, but he fought till the last against all odds, a true hero if there ever was one -" _

There were footsteps from the kitchen, and in one motion he'd rewadded the letter, tossed it back onto the floor, and stood with a vaguely subdued expression as Cissnei came in, a mug in each hand.

As she came around the corner of the couch, she glanced at the floor, at the letters, and almost imperceptibly flinched. How had she forgotten those? Better make the best of a bad situation - and hope Kunsel hadn't noticed. But he inadvertently glanced down with her, and she had to think quickly.

"You must find those very interesting," she said, handing him the mug of milk. In the process of moving she less than inadvertently kicked the letters under the couch. "I can almost see your head beginning to overheat trying to figure it out."

He laughed, hoping it didn't sound too forced. "And I imagine you planted 'em there just to mystify me, right?"

"No," she answered. "Actually, I -" She stopped, staring into her coffee as she slowly stirred it.

Kunsel picked up on her uncertainty and was all too willing to change the subject. "I have the impression there's something more pressing on your mind than telling me your life story?"

Kunsel pulled out the desk chair and sat backwards on it, resting his chin on his arms crossed on the chair's back, and studied her. In all his years of reading people, he'd never encountered someone as difficult to understand as Cissnei was. Well, except for one of his former bosses...but that was below the Plate, years ago, and needed to be forgotten.

But Cissnei: she was made of contradictions. She wavered between absolute loyalty to the Turks and working behind her own Department's back; she wanted friends, had obviously made friends, but then pushed them away. And she didn't fit the typical Turk profile; she wasn't desperate for money or fame or blood. Her motives...they were about as clear as mud.

"So you're looking for excitement," he finally said, coming to the most logical explanation he could think of.

"Yeah, I guess so. Real work. Something to give me a reason to continue." She sipped her coffee. "So, about AVALANCHE... I don't even know where to begin. Everything ties into so much bigger things."

"Start small - remember, I'm still at square one. I usually stay shy of Turk business. Now, Veld; I know him, or know _of_ him, at least. What have you heard of him since he left Shinra? Only what was compiled in those reports you had earlier?" Kunsel asked.

"Yes, although...I met him many months ago. It was in the Shinra Mansion, in Nibelheim, after I'd run into Zack at the strait separating the Western Continent. Veld was there, desperately searching for the third materia. I didn't know what he was doing there, although he briefly explained the support materia, and he knocked me out when Shinra troops came after him. I guess they thought he'd attacked me, because they didn't arrest me or anything."

"And this materia will both summon Zirconiade and heal Elfé." He paused. _Elfé._ Nope, no idea. "This girl, Elfé. Who is she? Why's she so special?"

"Well, not only is she our director's daughter, but she's also the leader of the terrorist group AVALANCHE. If we can get her healed and turned to our side, that threat will be neutralized."

"Is it really that serious a threat? Couldn't Shinra wipe them off the map if they put their mind to it?"

"In a word, no. AVALANCHE has connections everywhere. They're good - we thought we'd caught them once, only to find we'd captured decoys. When we have encountered their leaders, we've never had the power to take them down. You forget they're being led by a Turk-trained girl, as well as a genius scientist and a hardened outlaw. Heck, they were able to shoot the President when he was in Junon."

"Seriously? I thought that was a random assassin."

"That's what they want everyone to believe. Shinra's in denial about the whole deal, at least to the public. Inside, they're using everything they can short of the Sister Ray to bring AVALANCHE down." She set her coffee aside. "I've done what I can to warn Veld, both for his sake and Elfé's, but..."

Kunsel slid around in his chair, sitting straight in it and facing her. "You helped a convicted criminal?" Not much of a surprise, he thought, considering her loyalty to the Turks as a whole, and her own questionable activities, but to openly help Veld? More than her sense of duty seemed to be involved here.

"He's a criminal only by chance. He was driven to it, after he was forced to destroy his town, his daughter was supposedly killed, and then she was found again as the leader of Shinra's biggest enemy since Wutai! I would help him again, if I knew where he was right now."

He stared at her, then shook his head. "Why risk your job, your morals, your _life_ helping him? I don't see why you would ever -"

"He's like a father to me. He lost his family ten years ago when Kalm burned, and I - I never had a family to start with. Turks all might as well be related, as strong as the bonds are between us." She was speaking quietly, but her eyes were stone-hard and dark.

Kunsel was silent for a long time. There'd been more information in this single conversation than he'd gathered in the last six months. It was a lot to think about; there were still some holes, but the big picture was finally starting to make sense. However, one question kept coming to the front, and it was one he couldn't ignore. "So Veld is family. I still don't understand your ties to him, but then, I never had much of a family. I don't blame you at all. I'm just a little confused as to one thing: why are you trusting me with this? I'm not a Turk. What could a SOLDIER possibly do to help you?"

"Don't you see? I'm going to take down AVALANCHE - and you're coming with me."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Wow, sorry for the incredibly long time it took me to update this. But I even had to quit my part-time job because my school schedule was so tight, so that gives you an idea of how much time there is for me to write.

I have chapter 6 drafted and mostly edited, so (hopefully) I'll be able to post it fairly soon after this one.

Enough talk - on to the story!

* * *

September 28 - October 1

Kunsel didn't know what to do, or even what to think. Was Cissnei just begging to be turned in? He leveled a long stare at her, one he'd perfected from years behind a helmet, and tried to determine if she was crazy. He held the opinion that the majority of Shinra employees - Turks more than most - had to be at least slightly crazy to work there...but she certainly looked no more so than most.

So she must be serious.

He wasn't sure if he should laugh at her, or turn her in, or simply follow along and see where this went. She was going to take down AVALANCHE. All by herself. No, wait, she wanted him in with her. Boy, did this top everything!

She was watching him out of the corner of her eye as she stirred her coffee and sipped at it. She had no idea what kind of reaction her proposition would induce from him, but she certainly wasn't expecting his low chuckle as he leaned back in the desk chair, crossing his arms behind his head.

"I'm quite serious about this."

"So'm I. I just... It's a worthy cause, but I don't think Shinra will see eye-to-eye with you. AVALANCHE may be the company's top target, but I'm sure Veld isn't far behind. Taking them down could result in all attention being turned to Veld. And if you do succeed in this suicide mission, guess what - you'll be next on the blacklist. I'm not going to just stand by and let you run off and get killed."

"Shinra's feared the Turks almost since their inception. They allowed a monster to be created in their midst, and they've tried to keep us occupied with more and more dangerous missions. This was coming sooner or later, and I for one want to be a step ahead."

"Sound policy."

"So it's all 'worthy cause', 'sound policy,' and 'I'm watching you, Cissnei,' but where's the action? Where's the SOLDIER energy and drive?"

"Noticeably lacking," Kunsel said, resisting the urge to put his feet up on her clean white table.

Cissnei shut her mouth rather quickly and stared at him. "You are a SOLDIER, right? I'm beginning to have more misgivings about that helmet..."

Kunsel sat up, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked her in the face. "You wanna take down AVALANCHE; I'm with you all the way, being your bodyguard and all. I just think we ought to be careful. We're already somewhat under their radar, and being caught now - well, that's obviously a bad thing. But such a big operation will be hard to keep quiet."

The Turk was silent for a minute, gathering her thoughts. Treason was punished harshly, and what she was thinking of could get them both killed if they were found. But then, what was there that they did where one wrong move _couldn't_ get them killed? _I wish I knew his motives! He's so...hard to predict._ "I seldom operate through the usual channels. There's plenty of outside help we could get, such as Veld, who wouldn't care if the blame was pinned on them. We can be completely anonymous about it all."

"And then what? When AVALANCHE is gone and Shinra turns its attention back on the Turks?"

"We can handle ourselves. Don't worry about us in the future - I need an answer now. Which is it: turn me in, or go raise some hell for our enemies?"

He smiled again. "What's the alternative?"

"I'd slug you, take your gil, and run for it. Up to you. What do you say?"

"Who ever knew a SOLDIER to run _away _from trouble?"

* * *

_Things are building to a head. Hopefully Veld knows that, and knows what he's doing. Tseng is clearly keeping close tabs on his every location, as seen from the reports, but I don't think even he knows where Veld is now. It's worrisome. But it's probably for the best, as right now Shinra is a hornets' nest and if he gets captured, we're all going down. Because I'll stand by his side till the end, and the company won't treat him any more mercifully than they did Zack._

_And AVALANCHE...they've been silent, too. I intercepted a vague report that Raven troops were seen heading off into the Corel Desert a few days ago, but there's nothing conclusive. It's incredibly aggravating when your enemy obviously knows more about what's going on than you do yourself!_

_Because, to tell the truth, I have no idea what I'm doing. I thought all I needed was moral support, the word of someone that they believed in me, and - what was I expecting? My cause is just, therefore I'd have the strength of a thousand men? What was I thinking?_

She dropped her head into her hands, trying to force away the doubts. What was she supposed to do?

"Is it morning _already_?" Kunsel groaned from the couch, shielding his face from the light with a forearm.

"It was morning two hours ago," Cissnei replied, standing up from her desk and switching off the lamp, although the drawn curtains let the sun brightly into the room. Still with her back to him - some habits died hard - she quietly opened the drawer and filed the newly-written papers away with the rest of her diary.

"Muffins are in the oven, and there's ham and milk in the fridge."

"Really?" He was on his feet in an instant. Then he paused, crossing his arms over his bare chest. "You shouldn't've."

"If you really want to go into that again, I can take away all the chairs. Otherwise - " she turned toward him and got suddenly distracted by the fact that his hair was falling in his eyes and he seemed to be missing a shirt. "Get dressed."

She was already in her usual black suit, neat and tidy and ready for the day, if one didn't look too closely and notice her tired eyes. The SOLDIER, on the other hand, looked better rested than he'd been in days - Cissnei kept easy hours, and the pain of Zack's death was deadened somewhat by the surrounding commotion in Shinra. At the moment, though, the mention of food was enough to get him in uniform and in the kitchen without more conversation, and Cissnei was glad for the respite.

Had it really only been three days since she'd met this jaunty, devil-may-care warrior? That was hard to believe; they'd already settled into so much of a routine that she thought she'd feel a bit lost without him. His company was nice...his friendship was better. And he'd adapted himself so easily to her life, following her around the Tower without complaint, joking with her over every meal they shared, even, apparently, feeling secure enough around her to sleep half-dressed on her couch. It was nice having someone she could - mostly - trust and talk to about almost anything. She wondered if he felt the same.

Kunsel came back in carrying half a muffin; apparently as a side-effect of his chronic oversleeping, he'd developed the talent of eating quickly, to make up for lost time.

"Anything on the agenda for today?" he asked. "And if you say paperwork, I'm gonna have to kill something."

"Same here. Actually, Tseng called earlier and told me to take the day off. Said I should take a walk around town...as if that's something I'd do on my day off. So actually, I was just going to do nothing. Read a book, maybe. Or talk." Talking, what she'd once regarded as an art long lost to her, had never seemed easier than around Kunsel. She ought to watch herself or she'd say something she'd regret.

"Sure." He sat down, abruptly aware of her sharp glance at the food in his hand. "Actually, I have my own agenda for today." He disposed of the potential crumby mess by finishing the muffin in one bite. "I was wondering if your security-conscious Turk mind would let me borrow your computer for a while. There are some...files...I'd like to look at."

"The ones you gathered up in the office?" He stopped chewing for a moment. She continued, "Sure. Just, when you're done, if you wouldn't mind letting me see them...?"

He nodded. "Of course."

Cissnei stepped over to the desk and picked up her laptop, handing it to him and then retreating to the kitchen, ostensibly to wash the dishes. She didn't know what his way of coping was, but she didn't want to intrude. _Zack..._ She shut off that part of her mind. _He's so much like you... _She slapped the sponge down into the sink, spraying herself with water in the process.

"Um, hey."

She turned, dabbing at her front with a towel, to see the orange-haired SOLDIER in the doorway.

"I think you've got mail."

_Tseng?_ She went over to him, took the computer and set it on the counter. Sure enough, one of the icons on-screen was flashing, and it was with a feeling of excitement that she clicked on it. Finally, a mission! Or not...

Kunsel leaned over her shoulder, as if coming closer to the screen could make the words read differently. Cissnei herself blinked, reading the header twice before it really sunk in.

"_General Message to Shinra Personnel Regarding the Turks:_

_Due to a change in company policy, the Turks branch of the Department of General Affairs has become unnecessary and obsolete. All former Turks are required to turn themselves in to the proper authorities on the 49th Floor of the Shinra Building at the earliest possible date. Noncompliance will be considered treason; anyone seen assisting or associating with a free Turk will be considered to be violating a direct order and will be dealt with as such._

_- President Shinra"_

Her mind refused to function for a split second. Her world was spinning, falling apart. All her training, her reflexes that could react instantly to any threat, failed her as the unthinkable dawned on her. With their power gone, there were enough wolves out there that would be all too glad to give the Turks a taste of their own medicine - some people in Shinra most of all. There was fear in her eyes, her stance was rigid, but her mind was anything but frozen.

She backed up a step, then two, stopping when her lower back hit the stove. Kunsel turned toward her, an expression in his eyes - was it sympathy? He followed her, one hand held out helplessly, meaningless words on his lips, wanting to comfort her.

"Cissnei -"

He stopped an arm's-length from her, his bright gaze locked onto hers...and then he glanced back to the screen for a second.

In that instant, her hand closed on the handle of the heavy copper skillet on the stove, and, using all of her strength, she swung it around at his head. Kunsel was turned halfway toward her when he noticed and tried to block the blow, but his arms came up a moment too late to shield himself. The skillet crashed into the side of his head, and even enhancements couldn't soften the blow. He reeled, stumbled for a pace, then fell headlong to Cissnei's kitchen floor and blacked out.

* * *

Ashes. That was what it was, in his mouth. Tasted for all the world like ashes. But...in a kitchen?

Kunsel sat up, his head splitting, and staggered to his feet, clutching at the counter for support. One hand gingerly touched the side of his head, located the swelling behind his right ear. He shook his head slightly, then decided that was a very bad idea as his vision darkened at the edges and his heart pounded in his ears.

He looked around. Cissnei was gone, along with her computer and, he'd bet, any other useful items. He gritted his teeth and stepped around the bar table and back into the apartment's main room, even though he wasn't sure what he was going to do from there. Report in, he guessed, tell them he'd lost the target, and hope Scarlet didn't hear about it. He had no idea if her threats had anything behind them but wind, and he didn't want to find out.

The pounding was getting worse, rather than better, and he realized that it was the sound of the door being beaten down. All of a sudden there was a splintering crash and the noise ceased, replaced by loud voices. The SOLDIER turned to see the front door on the floor, and infantrymen accompanied by several Thirds were slipping into the apartment, taking up positions at every doorway.

"The target?" A voice near him made him turn and he found himself staring at a purple uniform and a blank visor. But the voice gave away its owner, and Kunsel smiled wryly at his friend, Luxiere.

"Knocked me out and ran for it."

Even through the helmet, he could sense surprise. "A Turk knocked you out?"

The orange-haired man shrugged. "My mistake. I'd begun to trust her. Stupidest thing I ever did." He sighed. "What now?"

"If she's gone, I'll call off the search. You probably need to report your status, and from there, who knows. Seems like most of the Turks pulled what yours did - although I must say, you got lucky. A couple of Thirds got killed, and at least one blacksuit went down, too. Tseng and Reno stayed, but I don't know about any others."

"Okay. I'll see ya in the briefing room," Kunsel said, trying to keep his steps straight as he started past the other Second. "By the way, any idea what set this off?"

Luxiere reached out, a hand on his arm, and leaned close. "No one's supposed to know, but the Turks have had Rufus Shinra in custody for a long time now, maybe years. He finally got out, and they lost their influence with the President. Now Shinra's out for blood."

Kunsel's eyes widened. "The Turks have the power to do that?" he whispered back.

"_Had_ the power. I have a bad feeling for the survivors." He straightened up. "See ya, Kunsel," he said, giving a casual salute and heading off to round up the troops, leaving the other SOLDIER feeling no happier about the whole mess.

Shaking his head, Kunsel made it to the elevator, resignedly pushing the button for the 49th floor. Heidegger wasn't known for assigning the most exciting missions, but right now he'd like a nice, quiet peacekeeping stint. Anything other than this hell the president had thrown him into.

He turned around suddenly, blinked twice, and with a groan punched the button for the Turk floor again. He was _not_ leaving his helmet for just any SOLDIER to find.

Luxiere and his crew had cleared out by the time Kunsel returned to the apartment. The door was standing ajar, and the rooms beyond were a wreck; the bookshelves had been ransacked, cabinets opened and their contents dumped on the floor, and the little desk had been all but turned upside-down. Cissnei would have been furious at the current state of her quarters...but Kunsel didn't care about her anymore. So he told himself.

His eyes fell on his sword propped up in the corner behind the couch, and he practically dove for it, leaping over the overturned table in his haste. There was his helmet, safe and untouched, resting on its crown on the floor. Scooping it up, he immediately ran his fingers around the inside until he touched the pocket hidden in the lining and felt the hard rectangle of the data drive. He could breathe now.

Tucking his headgear under his arm, he reached for his sword, swinging it lightly to his back and turning toward the door. He stopped suddenly, right hand still on the hilt, and pulled his sword in front of him just as quickly. A slender metal chain was securely wrapped several times around the leather handle, with a small pendant hanging like a keychain from the pommel. It took him a moment to disentangle it without risking damage to the fragile chain. Holding it up to eye-level, he stared in utter puzzlement.

It was a small necklace, the pendant piece a smooth deep-green stone figurine of a crouching guardhound. Its tiny ruby eyes flashed as it swung from his hand, and Kunsel realized that there was no way this could be Cissnei's - or at least, this wasn't jewelry she could wear - as he doubted the delicate chain would even fit around his wrist, much less someone's neck.

So the Turk had a child's jewelry lying around, and just decided to tie it to his sword hilt? It stank of a peace offering. Whatever. He wasn't in a position to judge. Shrugging, he returned to the elevator, slipping the pendant into his pocket. The next time he saw Cissnei, he could return it. _If_ he saw her again. Maybe.

Right now, he needed to refocus on what was going on around him, and mysteries certainly weren't helping matters any. There might be time for them later...although he was coming to realize that "later" had become a very uncertain proposition lately.

* * *

**A/N**: Here's where the official timeline starts breaking down, although it's nothing really noticeable, just a slight rearranging of events, such as Shinra disbanding the Turks and Rufus escaping the Turk floor. For a good while longer I'm planning on keeping the plot as canon as possible, although later on there'll be plenty of room for an AU.


	6. Chapter 6

October 1, afternoon and evening

The helicopter blades whirred monotonously, not loud enough to cover all sounds and not quiet enough for conversation. To the casual observer, the helmeted Second looked asleep in his seat, slumped against the safety belts with his arms crossed over his stomach, but his eyes were bright and one hand was halfway in his pocket, fingering something there.

There were two Thirds in the chopper with him, along with the pilot and co-pilot and a squad of infantrymen divided among the other helicopters in the fleet. It seemed so unsportsmanlike, so unfair - but at the same time it was a compliment. If the company thought Veld needed this much firepower to bring him down, they must be absolutely terrified of him.

Kunsel sighed, leaning his head back on the rest and staring unseeing at the ceiling. This reminded him way too much of a similar mission he'd read about, wherein a whole battalion was sent out after one man. But only three of those had survived. He was on the company's side on this one, and he wouldn't let the men under his command go down easily.

His fingers smoothed over the guardhound's sides. The stone was cool to the touch despite being kept next to his body, and every time he touched it there was an undeniable tingling that he felt he ought to place but couldn't. His mind unwillingly returned to Cissnei. She'd made her choice, and if it came to it he had no doubt she could hold her own, but there were so many questions that revolved around her. Her actions were so unpredictable - one day she was practically begging to be his friend and spilling all her secrets to him, and the next, she attacked him and disappeared without a word of explanation or apology.

After that he'd been hoping for a respite, time to gather his scattered thoughts and try to figure out what was going on in the world, and then he'd had another stupid Turk-related mission dumped on him.

_"The traitor, Veld, has been captured out on the Western Continent and we're bringing him in. You're to take a squad of infantry and escort him from Corel Prison to Midgar for trial. Under no circumstances should you let him have contact with anyone outside of the guard, and it would be better to kill him than let him escape."_

So here he was, several thousand feet above the scorching Corel Desert, going to take Veld to his probable execution.

Abruptly there was a change in the vibrations and they were descending rapidly, the temperature rising as their altitude decreased. All the men onboard reached for their weapons, and with a sigh Kunsel fastened his helmet's chinstrap and adjusted the angle of his sword on his back. Then the chopper hit dirt and both side doors crashed open, troops spilling out and taking up crouching positions in the sand, guns trained on a tall, dark man handcuffed between two burly infantrymen.

Kunsel squinted through the sun and drifting sand. Oh, yeah, Scarlet was here, too. Come to think of it, those weren't generic infantrymen, either; they bore the badge of the Weapons Development Department on their arms - Scarlet's personal troops. Veld's scarred face was stoic, but the SOLDIER didn't doubt that he'd already suffered enough at the executive's hands, judging from her satisfied expression.

"Kunsel, Second Class, reporting as assigned," he said, one eye on the prisoner and one on Scarlet as he approached. The reinforcements half-circled the ex-Turk, guns covering every angle of escape.

"About time," the blonde woman snapped, turning away, adjusting her combat vest. Kunsel breathed an unconscious sigh of relief that she didn't seem to recognize his name. "Take him on the first chopper, straight back to the Tower for his trial. And don't lose this charge!" Okay, so she did remember him.

"Yes, ma'am." He glanced back at his men and raised his chin; the semicircle broke as an opening was made facing the nearest helicopter. Kunsel crossed the sand toward Veld, stopping in front of the two Department soldiers. "I can take it from here." One began to sneer, but was elbowed by his companion and they both stepped back hurriedly as they caught Scarlet's eyes on them.

"Come with me, sir," Kunsel said quietly to Veld, nodding toward the idling chopper.

The ex-Turk still hadn't said a word, just did as he was told, an almost imperceptible crease in his brow. Kunsel followed a step behind, his sword drawn just in case, and the infantry closed in around them. The two Thirds boarded after Veld and took seats on either side of him; Kunsel sat facing him, his sword returned to his back as there was no room for it in the narrow compartment, but he had an infantry rifle across his knees - not that it looked like there'd be the least opportunity to use it, but he'd learned one thing from Cissnei: appearances are deceiving.

A quick glance out the open door showed the other troops, Scarlet's included, boarding the remaining choppers. Three infantry were jogging toward the primary helicopter and Kunsel waited until they were aboard and had closed both side doors before calling up to the pilot, "Let's go home, skipper!" There was an answering grumble and the blades' rhythm changed, followed by the vaguely nauseous feeling of the ground slipping away. Then they were airborne and gaining speed.

Veld had his eyes mostly shut, although Kunsel could detect a faint glimmer between his lids as he was no doubt keenly observing every detail. Well, the SOLDIER had had a few lessons in defying scrutiny; he withdrew all expressions into his helmet and assumed a blank face, letting his mind race along other tracks while he pretended attentiveness. His thoughts couldn't get anywhere, though, not without more information. Zack was dead, no one knew exactly why or how. Cissnei was gone who-knew-where, without a word or trace. The Turks as a whole were falling apart, SOLDIER was being undermined by the other departments, the President was content to sit back and watch the corruption grow up around him, and there was no one to trust. No one seemed to care. Perhaps it would be a good time to disappear.

...But the small problem of responsibility remained. At the moment, he was on a mission; overall, he'd sworn loyalty to the Company when he'd joined SOLDIER. That sort of thing had never stopped him before. So why was he still here?

* * *

It was twilight when they landed in the Wastes, but the tarmac was lit with every spotlight that could be brought to bear, making the surrounding darkness appear even blacker. It looked as if a good fraction of the Shinra army was stationed around the helipad when the escort arrived.

Both of the chopper's side doors were opened. Kunsel stood and briefly stretched, trying to work the cramps out of his neck and shoulders, before tossing aside his rifle in favor of his sword and motioning Veld out. The dark-haired man rose, stepping down from the helicopter with a slight limp, and stopped just outside.

"Four years, and they still fear me this much," the ex-Turk said, the first words Kunsel had yet heard from him. His voice was deep, quiet and yet easily heard, and the SOLDIER could see why it was very little effort for Veld to command the respect of his department. _Former_ department. Speaking of which...in the process of escorting Veld to the waiting troop car, Kunsel quickly scanned the horizon, half expecting to see a petite silhouette hidden near one of the many rocky spires, but the sky was too dark and he couldn't see any farther than the edge of the circle of light. She'd be a fool to come here now, anyway.

The leader of the reinforcements approached them, and after a quick salute to Kunsel and a word that his job here was done, the army closed in and the SOLDIER was pushed aside as Veld was marched off toward the truck. Kunsel felt sorry for him, but right now he didn't have any sympathy to spare. He'd felt sorry for a lot of people over the years, and nothing had ever come of it.

Veld boarded the waiting truck and disappeared, and the entire entourage roared off into the night, into the city, leaving the troops to find their own way home. With a handful of gil, Kunsel bribed one of the chopper pilots to drop him off at the Tower on his way to the hangar. On the short ride, alone in the now-spacious-seeming compartment, he dropped his helmet to the floor and ran his fingers through his hair.

Why in the Seven Pits of Hell did he feel this way? He'd been so ready to leave, intending to finish the one mission - deliver Veld - then slip back under the Plate and vanish there in the darkness just as quickly as he had appeared there so many years ago. The carved guardhound weighed heavily, not only in his pocket but on his mind. Why had she given it to him? That irked him just enough so that he _might_ stick around and figure it out.

The helicopter touched down softly on the roof, and he climbed out with a hurried thank-you to the pilot. Once on the elevator, he almost pushed the button for the Turk floor, but remembered. The apartment was a mess; no one would be sleeping there tonight. No sane person would walk into a death trap. _But Zack did..._

It was just as well that his roommates weren't there when he finally reached the bunkroom, crashing onto his bed and just lying there on his back, wondering if it would be worth the effort to get cleaned up and find something to eat before falling asleep then and there. Knocking his helmet off and onto the floor, he rubbed both hands over his face, grimacing at the sand and grit. Yeah, a shower would probably be worth it.

With effort, he forced himself back onto his feet, kicking his boots off and under the bed before heading down the hall in his socks, to the communal showers. The water woke him up a bit, refreshing him and making him realize that he was also very hungry. He stopped by the break room on the way back to his quarters and grabbed a handful of energy bars; once in the bunkroom, he sprawled out on his bed, munching at the food held in one hand while with the other he logged in to his laptop. It was about time he got around to that flashdrive!

He was almost halfway through all the files he'd "salvaged" - and was getting more troubled and confused the farther he read - when a trio of heavy footsteps sounded in the hall outside. Kunsel tensed at once, his mind flashing to the possibility of being arrested, but then relaxed just as easily, smiling slightly, at recognizing the shuffling steps of his roommates. Shifting around on the bed so his back was to the wall and the computer screen was hidden from all but him, he waited until the other Seconds were settled in their own bunks before continuing his reading.

Although he'd gotten all the records related to Zack, some important information was missing. Especially something big, the Jenova Project, as it was called. That name, that somehow sent an inexplicable shiver down his spine, didn't appear in any of the earlier files but was only mentioned after the break-out from the Nibelheim Mansion. But there was absolutely no clue as to what it actually was, only vague references to off-the-books experiments somewhere in the Nibel Mountains...that, and a mysterious Specimen C whose name appeared alongside Zack's everywhere the Project was mentioned.

"Hey, Kunsel!"

His head whipped up and he glanced about disorientedly for a moment before focussing on the SOLDIER lying on the bunk opposite his.

"Yeah?" he drawled, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes.

"You've been at that stuff for an hour now. Don't'cha ever sleep?"

"I wanna know what's so interesting on there," a sleepy voice mumbled from the bunk above Kunsel.

He shook his head. "Just catching up on an old friend." Too bad they'd joined too late and hadn't had the chance to meet Zack. "I'll be turning in soon enough." He'd seen enough to fill his mind for a good many nights with unsettling thoughts - about his friend, about the whole SOLDIER program, about himself.

Kunsel logged off and closed the laptop with a snap, leaning his head against the wall behind him. Depending on what his next assignment was, he hoped to have time tomorrow to go up to the Shinra library and do some more investigating. If this Jenova Project was as big as he was getting the feeling it was, there would have to be more information on it: scientific papers, department reports, expenditure records...all locked up, of course, but _that_ wouldn't slow him much.

* * *

It was a dark, deserted alleyway that Cissnei had ducked into, leaning back against the mildewy wall with her hands on her knees and lungs gasping for breath. That last encounter with the city patrol had been too close for comfort, and she wasn't familiar enough with life under the Plate to know the security routes and schedules so she could avoid them. In hindsight, staying above the Plate would probably have been a better course of action, seeing as she was more accustomed to the territory, but at the time her thought had been to find somewhere to disappear until she could think of a better plan.

Now that her brain had time to catch up to her actions and she was beginning to come off the adrenaline high she'd been running on since that morning, Turk training finally took precedence over preservation instincts. The events of the last eight hours, that had happened so fast at the time, now replayed in her mind in a nightmare slowness. Ducking under the Plate for cover hadn't been the worst of her mistakes; she wondered if it would have been better to try to convince Kunsel to come with her instead of knocking him with that skillet... But he was SOLDIER, and her department's troubles didn't touch him. She'd already dragged him into her affairs too much as it was, and had more than likely gotten him into more trouble than a guy like him ever deserved.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and ultimately brought her nothing except more regrets. What she really needed right now was intel, and backup, a disguise, perhaps a gun...oh, and a plan. A plan would be really nice right about now. But that would take time, and she was afraid she didn't have a lot of that to spare; the city was crawling with police patrols, and her black suit, previously an assurance of safety, now made her a target.

What made it worse was not knowing who she could trust. Her faith in Tseng had already been wavering, and she was cut off from all the other Turks, and who even knew where half of them were? If only Veld was here... Wishing got her nowhere. Now that she'd caught her breath, it was time to move out. As the city fell into shadow and the netherworld under the Plate became even darker, moving around unseen became easier and the risk of being spotted was somewhat less.

She'd need to consider all her options before making a plan she could stick to, but for now Cissnei decided that short-term thinking would do. First a meal, then a place to crash, followed by some recon. There weren't likely to be many places in the slums where a good meal could be found, and even fewer where it would be safe to sleep without expecting a knife in one's back, but previous Turk missions paid off. Don Corneo's wasn't the cleanest place, nor was it on her list of places to visit again before she died, but the guards there knew a good bribe when they were given one, and police patrols knew better than to stop there. Wall Market it was.

It would be a short walk from her present location to the Don's, but that would be along well-frequented roads - the most likely ones for the police to be patrolling. Overall, it would be best to wait until nightfall, but for lack of time a more direct approach would have to do. Taking off her jacket, she tied it about her waist, knowing she was sacrificing her protection from the slum denizens in favor of the disguise. She wished there was something she could do to change her hair, but luckily she wasn't one of the most conspicuous of the Turks, and she hoped there'd be enough girls in the Wall Market vicinity that one more would go unnoticed.

She took a deep breath and slumped her shoulders, dragging her feet in a worn-out shuffle as she stepped out into the half light of the world under the Plate. One dim, dank street led to another; there was nothing remarkable about any of them, all littered with debris left from Midgar's construction, all lit by wan streetlamps that looked like relics from the time before mako, all inhabited by lowlifes who were too afraid of the police to try living above-Plate.

Half a mile of roundabout back ways later, almost within sight of Corneo's place, she dared to think she might make it there without incident. Eyes were watching her from the darkened windows of the deserted buildings lining the street, but no one came out and accosted her. Until -

"Heyya, girl," a deep, slurring voice called from a darkened doorway. She glanced up quickly, but could make out little in the dim lighting. The front door of an abandoned warehouse across the street was missing, leaving the opening gaping like a toothless mouth; there was a figure slumped at the threshold...waving her over. _Give that up, mister!_

Cissnei quickened her steps as she passed directly in front of the building. Her eyes were on the ground, but all senses were on high alert, and Rekka was getting squeezed fiercely in her right hand. She wasn't completely expecting it, but she was prepared to respond when, without warning, the man leapt up and crossed the street in two bounds. Gracefully she whirled out of his way, letting him stumble past the place she'd been standing, as she backed swiftly into the circle of light of one of the lamp posts.

She held her head high, whipping her hair out of her face with a quick shake of her head, and motioned to her jacket and pants. "Blacksuit. Wanna mess with me?" With any luck - a concept she didn't put much faith in - Shinra would have kept the news to themselves of open season on Turks, so the uniform ought to daunt this guy...if he wasn't too sure of himself to care.

He paused, a crooked grin revealing black teeth. "Not me, sister." He held his hands up in denial.

Cissnei's grip tightened on her weapon as she narrowed her eyes at the slum-dweller. Trust your gut - and right now, it was saying loud and clear that this was a worse situation than it looked. It wasn't the first time in the last nine hours that she wished she had a less conspicuous weapon; something like a gun, or even an EMR would be better than a giant spinning red wheel of death. She'd use it if she had to, of course, but knife work would be preferable...although she hated the thought of having to get close enough to the man to be able to use her knife. She could smell his reek from here, ten feet away.

"I just wanna talk," he continued, making useless noise and blocking the way she'd been headed.

But just as she stepped away from the post, advancing on the man who retreated at every step, she felt a movement behind her and turned in time to duck a hand aimed at her neck. In an instant Rekka was back in her pocket - but still accessible at a moment's notice - and her knife was out. The second denizen backed off, but only for a second. Cissnei had an impression of a scarred, bearded face and the strong stench of smoke before he closed in again, dodging her thrusts and blocking her with his arms.

She knew more than one way to fight, though, and no trick was too low if it saved her life. Her knee slammed into his groin, followed by an elbow to the throat and a quick disengage. Cissnei stepped back enough to regain her balance, then leapt forward again, knife angled for the man's forearm. If she could draw blood, there was a good chance they'd shy away from her and leave her alone.

The first man, the heavyset one with the distracting words, had maneuvered behind her and was out of her sight, setting her nerves on edge. With good reason, too, as two hands wrapped easily around her waist and picked her up. One of her hands grabbed onto the lamp post for leverage and she kicked behind her, swinging her body as much as she could, and aiming low with her feet. The guy dropped her and staggered back, gasping, but the bearded thug was on her before she could regain her footing, and he slammed her back against the wall; his chest collided with hers, knocking the wind out of her, and her head cracked painfully against the masonry. Her legs were securely pinned, and as she brought her hands up, she realized that somewhere in the process of being lifted and dropped and tackled, she'd dropped the knife.

Meaty hands were on her shoulders, spinning her around so her front was to the wall and her wrists were behind her back. She fought like a cat, lashing out with one free leg and twisting her arms out of his grasp, but it wasn't looking good. All she needed was one hand to reach Rekka and then it would all be over with, but her weapon could be a million miles away for all the good it was doing in her pocket. A hand grabbed her collar, twisting until her already-labored breathing whistled in her throat.

"Blacksuit you're not, missy," the first man growled. "Would'a been easier for you if you'd just done as I said and -"

"Excuse me, but what's going on here?"

Both men froze, and even Cissnei swallowed a gulp of panic at the thought that they'd been caught by police.

"I believe you ought to let go of the young lady, unless you want me to cook whatever pitiful remnants you use for brains." There was an electric crackle as one of the thugs moved away from Cissnei and toward the newcomer; a brief scuffle, a scream, the smell of a lightning strike and burned flesh, and Scarface was writhing on the ground by the lamp post. The first denizen let go of her shirt and took two slow steps back, hands up in the defensive gesture again, then turned and fled into the darkness. One hand on the wall for support, the other in her pocket in case the newcomer proved to be trouble, Cissnei turned around and looked up into Rod's grinning face.

"You looked like you could use some help, partner," he said, smacking his EMR into his left palm. "Don't worry, happens to all of us sometime or other."

"Thanks. That was...convenient." She spared him a small smile. "What brings a rookie like you to the bad part of town?"

"Same as you, probably. When you're driven out of house and home, where else do you go but the bottom?" He shrugged and gestured ahead, where a black and red motorbike was leaned against the next light post. "I'm on recon right now. Looking to see what's going on in the rest of the city."

"There's someone to report to? I figured everyone was either hiding or captured."

"Actually, for once Shinra was true to their word, and they didn't kill anyone who turned themselves in. That's where Reno, Rude, and the Director are -"

"Tseng? Turned himself in? Why would he...?"

"Save face, maybe. Or cover for us. Or, who knows - he never seemed as completely trustworthy as Veld was, so maybe he's really on their side. Legend's in charge now; we're all meeting at Little Gun's bar and trying to regroup. I'd heard that Shotgun was in the area and was looking to take her back to headquarters. You...you were supposed to be dead, according to official Shinra memos. Something about tangling with a SOLDIER while trying to escape?"

"My bodyguard was the one to be knocked out, not me." She surpressed a twinge of guilt and continued, "I've heard nothing about what's going on, and I haven't seen Shotgun at all. Mind giving me a lift back to the bar? It'll be a nicer place to stay than what I'd had in mind."

"Sure thing." The red-headed Turk flipped his keys out of his pocket as they approached the bike. "By the way," he said as he swung a leg over, "seeing as you were the last one out of Shinra, what have you heard of Veld recently?"

"Veld? Nothing. Tseng asked me several days ago to correlate some data on him, but as far as I know, he's still on the Western Continent somewhere. Why do you ask?"

Rod paused a moment before replying. "There's been a lot of rumors flying around, and the most troubling is one that Veld may have been captured by Shinra."

"But - if he has, he's as good as dead!"

"Don't we all know that? But him being captured is about as likely as the Plate falling. Probably just another barracks rumor."

_Barracks, huh? _"I might have an in on that one."

One red eyebrow raised.

"I'll check as soon as you get me to that bar."


End file.
